Page 8 



BETTER FRUIT 



April 



dry period or one of hard freezing 

 weallier Ijeing least favorable for the 

 work. 



The very best poisoned bait we have 

 so far discovered for pocket gophers 

 consists of sections of sweet potato, 

 parsnip or carrot treated with i)ow- 

 dered strychnine. The vegetable used 

 should be cut into pieces about as 

 thick as one's little finger and approxi- 

 mately an inch long. It is best to mix 

 the strychnine with about one-tenth 

 its bulk of saccharin in order to par- 

 tially disguise the bitter taste of the 

 poison. The mixture may then be put 

 into a pepper box and dusted over the 

 bait while the pieces are still fresh 

 and moist. One-sixteenth of an ounce 

 of strychnine is sufficient for two 

 quarts of the bait. Stir the pieces 

 about while dusting on the poison so 

 that the latter may be evenly distrib- 

 uted. If the bait has dried so that the 

 poison will not readily adhere wet the 

 cut vegetables and then drain until the 

 pieces are in the proper condition. 

 The bait must not be sloppy. 



Another very good way of preparing 

 the bait is to stir the powdered strych- 

 nine and saccharin thoroughly into a 

 small quantity of rather thick laundry 

 starch, made up just as for starching 

 clothes and allowed to partly cool 

 before using. Pour this over the bait 

 and stir until all the pieces are fully 

 coated with the poisoned paste. Xot 

 more than one-thir<l of a tcacupful of 

 the prepared starch will be needed to 

 coat two quarts of the bait. It is best 

 to let the starch coating dry for a 

 short time so that soil particles will not 

 adhere to the bait when it is jnit out 

 in the field. 



In putting out the bait entrance into 

 the go])her's burrow may be effected 

 by the use of a sharpened prod about 

 an inch in diameter. Types of such 

 prods are illustrated herewith. The 

 one that is made of a broom handle, 

 with a piece of one-quarter or three- 

 eighths-inch iron rod fitted into the 

 large end and projecting about twelve 

 inches, will give good satisfaction in 

 ordinary soils. Both the rod and the 

 handle should be bluntly pointed. The 

 former is used as a seeker, the latter 

 for enlarging the opening where poi- 

 soned bait is to be introduced into the 

 gopher's runway. To penetrate hard 

 soils a prod with a footrest attached 

 may be needed. The course of the 

 burrow can be located by prodding 

 the soil in a line between two adjacent 

 mounds, or, if the pile of earth has 

 been freshly thrown up, a better plan 

 is to push the dirt aside with the foot 

 and find the lightly-plugged lateral 

 leading into the runway. In either 

 case push the bait well into the open- 

 ing. It is immaterial whether the lat- 

 ter be closed or not after introducing 

 the bait. It is good practice to obliter- 

 ate all mounds with hand rake or drag 

 of some sort a few days after putting 

 out the poison, so that if any gophers 

 escape the first attack the new mounds 

 they construct may be readily detected. 

 Gophers are more easily trapped 

 than perhaps any other animal pest of 



our agricultural districts. The ordi- 

 nary type of steel trap. No. 0, may be 

 used, set either in a lateral or in the 

 main runs; but a specially designed 

 gopher trap will usually give much 

 better results. Set singly, these traps 

 must be placed in the lateral, or short 

 branch leading from the main burrows 

 to a point where dirt has been recently 

 pushed out. If entrance is effected 

 into the main tunnel two traps must be 

 used, one facing each way. One or 

 more types of gopher trap may usually 

 be fountl on sale at a local dealer's. 

 The simpler and more compact the 

 device th.e better. Those made entirely 

 of metal are to be preferred to those 

 having some wood in their construc- 

 tion. Explicit directions for setting 

 any particular make of trap are, or 



should be, furnished with the trap 

 when sold. In jjlacing either one of 

 the metal traps shown in the illustra- 

 tions accompanying this article, find a 

 freshly-constructed lateral from the 

 gojiher's burrow to a new mound of 

 earth, as directed in the account of 

 poisoning operations. Enlarge this 

 short side branch by hand or with the 

 plant trowel and push the trap back 

 for its full length, "sawing" it into the 

 ground so that it will remain in posi- 

 tion when the gopher approaches. 

 These small ti'aps will need to be se- 

 cured by wire and stake to prevent 

 their being dragged back into the wind- 

 ings of the runway. The box type of 

 trap is intended to be set snugly up 

 against the end of the open lateral from 

 a burrow. 



Disposal of Fruit By Auction 



By Arthur M. Geary, Portland, Oregon 

 J hundred vears most of 



FOR over 

 the foreign fruits and a large per- 

 centage of the vegetables consumed in 

 London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull, 

 Bremen, Hamburg and a number of 

 other European cities have been sold 

 under the hammer. In this country 

 auction selling of fruit began at about 

 the time of the Civil War. Sailing ves- 

 sels from Southern Europe and the 

 tropics, loaded with oranges, lemons, 

 bananas and other fruits, were sold to 

 the trade of Boston, New York, Phila- 

 delphia and other cities as they 

 gathered on the wharves, — often the 

 auctioneer standing upon a stand 

 under a raised umbrella. Horatio 

 Harris, the founder of H. Harris & 

 Company of Boston, and Edward 

 Brown, founder of Brown & Seccomb, 

 auctioneers, which is one of the three 

 firms now operating in New York, 

 were the pioneer auction sellers of the 

 United States. 



In New York today the three auction 

 houses own a ten-story building at 204 

 Franklin Street, where Sicilian lem- 

 ons, Spanish Almeno grapes, Florida 

 oranges, and grapefruit and pineapples 

 from Cuba and the Isle of Pines arc 

 sold at auction. Samples of cargoes 

 and cars of these fruits are put upon 

 display in the Fruit Auction Building. 

 From estimates of the quality and value 

 of these samples, the trade of New 

 York, composed of seven or eight hun- 

 dred jobbers, brokers, hotel agents, 

 large retailers and commission mer- 

 chants make their bids in the sales 

 auditorium that are found on the floor 

 above. A gi-eat many of the offices of 

 fiiMiis connected in some way with the 

 fruit business are located in the Fruit 

 Auction Building. 



The bananas are the only fruits that 

 are still sold after the fashion of the 

 sixties. As bunches of bananas are 

 carried fi-om the h<dils of the vessels 

 and loaded upon wagons, buvers stand 

 around and judge of the quality of the 

 fruit. ^Vhen a wagon is loaded, the 

 auctioneer, who operates from the 

 bridge of the ship, auctions it off to the 

 highest bidder. The I'nited Fruit 



Company, during the last few years, 

 has been using this method of distri- 

 bution in New York. 



The fruit from the Pacific Coast that 

 is consumed in the New York district, 

 which embraces a population of eight 

 millions or more, is unloaded on Erie 

 Pier, whicli is also known as Pier 20. 

 The great dock is 800 feet long and 

 two hundred feet wide, heated by 

 steam pi])es in winte)- and cooled by a 

 ventilation svstem in sunnner. All the 

 fruit cars from California, Oregon, 

 ^Vashington, Idaho and Montana arrive 

 at the terminal yards in .lersev City 

 and are towed across the Hudson 

 River on scows during the night to 

 Erie Pier. Here great gangs of men ' 

 work through the night at unloading 

 and opening sample boxes. Different 

 from the practice at the .\uetion Build- 

 ing, whole cars are placed where the 

 trade can view them. If a buyer de- 

 sires he can open all the boxes, but 

 generally he is satisfied with viewing 

 the ojjcned sani|)le boxes. 



When the trade of New York is 

 turned loose among the fruit in the 

 morning, every car and every lot of 

 fruit in every car can quickly be lo- 

 cated by numbers and description 

 found in the daily catalogs that are dis- 

 tributed free. The actual bidding on 

 Pacific Coast fruit takes place in the 

 two sales auditoriums, located on the 

 second floor of Erie Pier. 



One of the principal functions of the 

 auction houses is to advance cash 

 to the agents of the growers, who- 

 ever they may be. Within twenty-four 

 hours after a car is auctioned ofi', a 

 check is handed to the agent who had 

 the car sold, and there is no reason 

 generally why the check should not be 

 mailed on to the grower or the grow- 

 er's association at once. The auction 

 houses must wait for their money, as 

 the bulk of it is sold on ten, fifteen 

 and thirty days' credit. By a carefully 

 built-up system of extending credit, the 

 auction houses handle millions with 

 the loss of but a few hundred dollars 

 from bad bills. 



